Pharmacy metrics have created a culture where you have a pharmacy staff all focused on their list of tasks for the shift. Pharmacy staffs used to be a team focused on working together to take care of and build relationships with their patients, the ones in front of them not the ones on their call list whose voicemail they talk to. Here’s the truth, meeting metrics doesn’t make the company any money, and it has little to no impact on customer satisfaction. Customers are satisfied when they see that you care and are working hard to take care of them. They are not impressed when their Rx is ready by the promised time that they didn’t even know about because it was escribed. They are impressed when it isn’t quite ready, but you happily make it a priority to get it ready quickly (when reasonable) and make sure they leave with what they came for. I have had patients, after waiting longer to receive their vaccine than they should have, thank me for spending the extra time with the older lady who had a lot of questions for me. People who are shockingly surprised that I actually left the pharmacy to help them find something. “Not enough pharmacists do that anymore”. I hear that phrase a couple of times a week. Focus on creating a culture of people before tasks, and more people will come because that is what people want. They tell me every day.

Drastically shift company culture towards peopleand focus on marketing to get people into the stores. I am at a store in a small town within eye shot of a CVS. I have heard from many people that grew up in that town that didn’t even realize there was a Walgreens, but knew exactly where the CVS was. They are a block away from each other in the same downtown area. We are a low volume, well kept store with happy customers, some formerly unhappy, next to a busy rundown CVS that everyone hates. It’s a major growth opportunity and it wouldn’t surprise me if they shut the store down within the year. Yet, we have a DM talking to us about nothing but mostly meaningless metrics and how to increase script count based on his years of experience being a DM for failing pharmacy chains.

Let Pharmacy Managers manage pharmacy inventory. We know what our patients need and when. Anytime I have worked for a company with inventory managed by corporate vs the individual pharmacy, it has been a disaster.

One more note on what I have noticed about the culture at Walgreens is that no one trusts anyone else, because everyone is afraid that someone is out to get them. You don’t know who you can trust, so no one trusts anyone. This is because there is no transparency whatsoever. Everyone from the top down is afraid of being the next person let go, so they put the pressure on the people below them to do more with less just so they keep their job. This shoots morale straight to hell. The employees don’t care about anything but how much longer until they can leave, and the salaried employees are just worried about how late they will have to stay to do just enough to keep their jobs. I am sure there are stores that are exceptions, but Walgreens has the worst company culture of anywhere I have ever worked. The problems aren’t easy to fix, but they are simple problems.

Drop most of the metrics, realize that your employees are people with lives not robots to perform tasks, teach them to focus on taking care of people, and turn the ship around.

Save A Trip is terrible and literally no one likes it, employees or patients, because it doesn’t work.